Children's Reasoning about Geometric Footprints

Christopher Young, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States

Alana Foley, University of Chicago

Susan Levine, University of Chicago

Abstract

We explored preschool’s children’s understanding of
the correspondence of 3-D objects and 2-D faces in a novel task. In the
“footprints” task children were shown a geometric solid, such as a
pyramid or a prism, and asked to select which shape the solid would make if it
were dipped in ink and stamped on a piece of paper. Through a latent class
analysis of children’s errors we found children differed significantly in
their misconceptions about object structure. Three distinct classes of children
emerged: children who could only match visible faces, children who believed
solids have an ‘essential’ face irrespective of rotation, and
children who differentiated faces based on a solid’s rotation. We examined
the characteristics of children in each of these classes using a battery of
spatial tasks and numeric tasks. Our results suggest errors found in older
children’s and adults’ reasoning about geometric concepts develop
prior to formal schooling.